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UK Employees Are Confidentiality Snoops

Wednesday 15 November: Samsung Electronics, a world leader in IT technology, today reveals the results of its first 'UseIT Survey', which examines how workers are actually using IT in the workplace and how this affects issues such as productivity, health and security. In partnership with YouGov the survey was completed UK-wide and polled over 2,000 office workers from a range of business sectors, from 1 to 1000+ employees, looking at measuring their attitudes, opinions and issues they have with the everyday IT office equipment. In the section relating to the security of data and how we protect our information, the results highlight that for many companies the workforce is not only a weak link, but a definite vulnerability.

Despite security spending reaching £1.8bn annually with smaller companies spending £15 to £134 a month on security, while larger firms fork out between £960 and £2,500 a year, security breaches and confidentiality concerns are growing. The most worrying finding highlights that 80% of respondents, approximately 20 million members of the UK population that use computers, keep their IT passwords in their head (possibly explaining why IT departments get so many calls to reset passwords), whilst 8% keep it in their diaries and 5%, or 1.25 million, keep it on a post-it note.

'Stop! Confidentiality Police'The key research findings that were highlighted in this section provide an indication on just how confidentiality-averse UK employees can be, and do suggest suitable cause for UK employers to become tougher on enforcing confidentiality. To demonstrate the depth of this problem, the research highlights that 57% of respondents have found and read confidential information on a printer, and even more serious than this, 21% admit to reading confidential information on a co-workers monitor.

Another finding of the research highlights how 58% of respondents admit to regularly printing off documents and failing to collect them off the printer - this was true across the board, encompassing all levels of management including board members and reflects a frightening lack of security around confidential and company-critical information.

"The security threats highlighted in the research indicate a disaster waiting to happen and prove that employees can be an organization's biggest liability!" said Neil Berville, IT Divisional Director, Samsung Electronics. "Most worrying, is the lack of regard for confidential information that we seem to have in the UK. These figures indicate not only major carelessness on behalf of those who leave valuable information lying around, but also the complete disregard for confidentiality that finds people reading this information, or even worse, scanning other employees monitors for it."

"IT products need to address this apparent employee carelessness when it comes to security and ensure that simple security measures are put in place to counteract this behavior. Combating the confidentiality issue, the pin code function on our printers holds the print job on the printer hard disk until the user enters the four-digit pin codes on the control panel, perfect for HR and finance departments where workgroup devices routinely print sensitive information. Samsung printers also allow users to print direct from USB keys, without connecting to a PC or network, eliminating the danger of sending confidential information across the network."

About Samsung ElectronicsSamsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2005 parent company sales of US$56.7 billion and net income of US$7.5 billion. Employing approximately 128,000 people in over 120 offices in 57 countries, the company consists of five main business units: Digital Appliance Business, Digital Media Business, LCD Business, Semiconductor Business and Telecommunication Network Business. Recognized as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is a leading producer of digital TVs, memory chips, mobile phones, and TFT-LCDs. For more information, please visit www.samsung.com/uk

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